This Background is intended to provide the basic context of this patent application and is not intended to describe a specific problem to be solved.
Pay-as-you-go or pay-per-use business models have been used in many areas of commerce, from cellular telephones to commercial launderettes. In developing a pay-as-you go business, a provider, for example, a cellular telephone provider, offers the use of hardware (a cellular telephone) at a lower-than-market cost in exchange for a commitment to remain a subscriber to their network. In this specific example, the customer receives a cellular phone for little or no money in exchange for signing a contract to become a subscriber for a given period of time. Over the course of the contract, the service provider recovers the cost of the hardware by charging the consumer for using the cellular phone.
The pay-as-you-go business model is predicated on the concept that the hardware provided has little or no value, or use, if disconnected from the service provider. To illustrate, should the subscriber mentioned above cease to pay his or her bill, the service provider deactivates their account, and while the cellular telephone may power up, calls cannot be made because the service provider will not allow them. The deactivated phone has no “salvage” value, because the phone will not work elsewhere and the component parts are not easily salvaged nor do they have a significant street value. When the account is brought current, the service provider will reconnect the device to network and allow making calls.
This model works well when the service provider, or other entity taking the financial risk of providing subsidized hardware, has a tight control on the use of the hardware and when the device has little salvage value. This business model does not work well when the hardware has substantial uses outside the service provider's span of control. Thus, a typical personal computer does not meet these criteria since a personal computer may have substantial uses beyond an original intent. Further, the components of a personal computer, e.g. a display or disk drive, may have a significant salvage value.
In a typical pay-as-you-go computing business model, a user purchases a code that is redeemable for a number of computing hours at a specially-equipped electronic device. The user may add time to an existing account balance by purchasing additional codes. However, to ensure security of the user's time balance, to securely track consumed time, and to prevent illicit use of metered applications, all associated time and applications are stored at the machine itself and cannot be transferred to other machines. Storing the user's time balance and metered application on one machine prevents the user from accessing computer services at any machine other than the device containing the account balance and applications.